A gas station near me has a 1934 FORD coupe (flathead V8) for sale. I was intrigued by the thought of driving an antique to work. So, for those of you who have tried it-is it fun or a pain in the neck?
I know, a 1930’s car has a lot of annoyances:
-6 volt electric system
-no power steering, brakes, or A/C
-lousy drum brakes (plan your stops)
-slow acceleration
Howver, the car looks so cool (running boards and split windshield)! It’s like a gangster car!
Or, is such a car extremely dangerous to drive?
Fun for a while, then the novelty wears off and it becomes a chore. Nothin’ like turning the key, cranking up the stereo, fireing up the A/C and motoring off at 85 mph in your new (newish maybe) car.
If the price is right, buy it anyway and drive it occasionally. Thats a hoot.
You know whats wierd about old cars? They smell funny inside…
Overheard at a Shakespeare Festivale: “What the hell did he say?”
I drove a '29 ford in college (yes, it was an antique at the time, thank you)
no a/c, no real heat, but put that puppy in first, and it would climb a mountain.
around town? definately!
100 miles. cool.
cross-country? well… pick a cool day, load up a small stereo - it could work.
be aware - thay do not have ‘permanently lubricated’ anything - you will become familiar with a grease gun.
and - find out if there is a car club around - when those cars need work, the local dearlship will be of no use.
What you really need to take into consideration with vintage cars:
Can you afford the repairs on them.
I say go for it, but be prepared to spend a lot of money on the car. If you’re going to use a 68 year old car as a daily driver, you’re going to want to do some work on it before you start driving it on a regular basis. The first thing you need to do is get a copy of Hemmmings Motor News to track down a list of part suppliers. Next, I’d recommend picking up a couple of hot rodding and custom car mags.
You’ll need all of those magazines so that you can find not only replacement parts for when something breaks (as it will, and Autozone probably isn’t going to have the parts), but also because you’re really going to need to do some relatively minor modifications if you want to be safe in the car. Fortunately, most of these mods won’t harm the value of the car to collectors too much. Put seatbelts in the car. It’s got a steel dash and if you were ever in a wreck, you don’t want to smack into that thing. Secondly, upgrade the car to 12 volts (this is a very common modification so parts and expert help are easy to find). The car will start and run better if you do. Plus you can put a decent sound system in the car quite easily and not be stuck listening to AM radio.
If it were me, I’d also look into upgrading the braking system of the car. This is pricey, but the car currently doesn’t have what’s known as a dual master cylinder. This means that if you rupture a brake line (and you should have those inpected and replaced if you don’t upgrade the brake system) all the fluid leaks out of the lines and you’ll find yourself with no way to stop the car. (Not fun, been there, done that.)
You also don’t have to live without A/C, if you don’t want to. There’s a company called Vintage Air that makes drop in A/C units for old cars that hook up to the original engine and don’t require you to gut the car to install them.
Finally, I’d recommend getting a “kill switch” installed so that it’s hard for someone to hotwire and steal your car. (They work better than car alarms, since no one pays attention to those anymore.)
Again, I say go for it. If enough people start tooling around in old cars on a daily basis, Detroit’ll wake up and start cranking out better looking designs. (Oh yeah, that ole flathead Ford V-8 will fly!)